A Virus Reborn
by OutlastTheDark
Summary: Several years after the Supercomputer was shut down by the Lyoko Warriors, a dormant X.A.N.A finds itself questioning the events that had played out over the course of those few years, and whether a certain young man's words perhaps should have been taken into more careful consideration. Ah, well. Nothing for it now but to take a chance. (X.A.N.A x Odd)
1. Chapter 1

A Virus Reborn Prologue/Chapter 1: Return to the Past

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**No, I'm not sure what I'm doing, and neither does my therapist.**

**Anywhoo, an idea of mine has been bubbling in the back of my mind for the last few weeks; boiling down to...how can I make the most fanfic'y concept work in a semi-realistic, or at least believable way, and I figured 'Hey, why not try that idea out with the series that ended up getting me into fanfiction back when I was only 14'. So as a result, here's the most ridiculous thing I could think of; X.A.N.A x Odd. Couldn't possibly go wrong.**

**Not sure what the update schedule will be on this, but I've got a decent idea of where I'll eventually take the story, so no worries there. Enjoy!**

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"Well, this isn't exactly how I planned t'start the day."

The mechanical tendril ensnaring him only tightened around his midsection as the yellow haired young man hanging upside down let out a yelp of pain, his teeth set as he glared down at the sandy surface of Lyoko's desert sector below him.

How had things come to this again?

Oh, right. Murderous, blood-thirsty carnival rides were currently terrorizing the school, prompting yet another panicked visit to Lyoko. Ferris wheels out of control, cotton candy machines hunting down students. Odd was relatively sure he had even spotted Jim dueling against a pair of animate bumper cars.

Somehow, that one had been the least jarring.

_"Don't panic, Odd! Yumi's already on her way!"_

"Yeah, no worries! I'll just be hangin' around!"

Jeremie's disembodied voice was always a pleasant reminder that he was far from alone in this strange virtual world. An auditory beacon of salvation in an otherwise hostile space where anything that moved was more than likely out for blood.

And speaking of out for blood...

Odd let out an annoyed sigh as he glanced down to the sandy surface below him, his eyes set upon a pair of tarantula monsters that had taken up flanking positions on either side of him as he hung there, ready to fire upon any would-be rescuers before they could hope to draw near.

"So..." He hummed, "Who likes knock-knock jokes?"

The tarantula monsters remained stock still, betraying not even a hint that they had so much as even registered his voice.

"Uh, anyone in there?" The blonde attempted once more, wriggling around in his bindings, "Testing; one, two."

The monsters seemed to finally respond, both shifting around just a bit, though neither graced him with the benefit of their attention. Or had they? It was pretty hard to tell with only that strange eye-symbol to go off of...

"X.A.N.A., right?"

No response.

"...Y'wanna tell me why you keep doing this?"

The monster on the left finally seemed to respond to the blonde's goading, it's eye-like symbol snapping up to face the young man, almost as if to warn him to cease his prattling.

"Do you think we're trying to hurt you, or something?"

As if finally showing it understood the young man's words, one of the beasts glanced towards the battle ensuing on the nearby platform, a single boney appendage aiming in the general direction of the chaos, almost as if to mockingly point out the young man's fallacy.

"Fair, but," Odd surrendered, bobbing his head back and forth as he pressed on, unabated, "It's not like we wanted any of this. We're just trying to keep our friends- our world- safe."

A flurry of sparks and data flew through the artificial air of the sector as Yumi dispatched a yet another monster, her path of carnage drawing ever closer to the platform Odd had found himself ensnared above.

"When we turned on the Supercomputer, the first thing you did was attack. Heck, I still get freaked out whenever I see one of those cockroach monsters," Odd continued, seemingly unconcerned with the ongoing struggle, "Can you imagine a bunch of those running around in the real world? No thank you!..."

_**Invaders...**_

The etching was faint, appearing upon the sandy floor as if from nowhere, shimmering softly in the artificial sunlight. If he hadn't been dangling upside down like a drunken bat, then he would have very well missed it.

Still, it was communication. Communication was good. It was a start. It meant that his words wouldn't immediately hit a stone wall.

"We're not invading. At first we didn't even know what we'd stumbled on," Odd tried, tilting his head towards one of the monsters, "But now? Now we're just trying to-... to..."

_Shut you down._

If those strange monsters below him could look smug, Odd was relatively sure he'd be drowning in their ire-filled expressions.

"...We'd rather live with you Xana, not against you. Heck, do y'know how cool it'd be to have an all-powerful AI for a study partner would be? I might even get a good grade, for once!" His almost obnoxious laughter lasted for only a moment before the smile fell from his face, "We wouldn't need to do what we're doing if you'd just...give humans a _chance_."

_**Humanity...**_

_**Corrupted...**_

"Yeah. We're a pretty screwed up crew, huh?" Odd agreed, "But that's what makes living life so awesome, y'know? Everyone's different. Especially Kiwi. You'd like Kiwi. You an' my little diggity-dog both like to screw with Ulrich."

The battle was drawing closer; a flurry of razor sharp fans and metal searing lasers. Yumi would be on top of them in only a few more moments- with Ulrich and Aelita nowhere in sight. They had most likely gone and reached the tower by now.

Somehow, in his own weird way, Odd had at least aided the team in ensnaring a portion of X.A.N.A.'s attention. Small victories, right?

"...I know you don't believe me, but you should give humanity a chance. I think we'd surprise you." Odd's tone took on an uncharacteristically somber tone as he forged on, "Experience life instead of trying to control it. I mean, I'm not exactly Jeremie when it comes to logical decisions, but even I can see an opportunity like this."

_**Opportunity?**_

"Yeah. You know? Like...like a chance! A chance that you might...like the world out there. That you don't have to control it. I'm asking you to just take a chance," Odd paused, seemingly searching for the words that would drive home whatever half-assed point he was trying to muster, "...And for you to give us one."

Any further arguments that could be made were swiftly cast aside as a fan suddenly flew past the purple-clad blonde, severing his bonds in a glorious display of sparks, followed by a not so glorious example of grace by Odd as he found the unforgiving pull of gravity overtake him.

Whoever said cats always landed on their feet was a lying sadist.

There was a small flurry of violence as Odd struggled to bring himself to his feet, still dazed from his sudden meeting with the floor, rendering him as little more than an observer to Yumi's skill as she cut down the tarantula monsters that had been standing sentinel.

"C'mon Odd! No time to lay around!" Yumi called out as the cat-warrior shook off his lethargy- and perhaps just a shred of melancholy- giving the geisha a grin.

"You got it! Let's go!"


	2. Chapter 2: Devirtualization

**A Virus Reborn Chapter 2: Devirtualization**

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**Heyo; no real news in regards to the story this time around. Hope everyone had a fantastic New Years! Enjoy!**

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...

How long had it been, since the Lyoko Warriors had shut down the Supercomputer? Days? Weeks? Years, even?

X.A.N.A. couldn't be sure anymore.

For all of it's calculating prowess, all it could seem to focus on was...was the past. Past battles, past failures, and past successes. The faces of the Lyoko Warriors; each one flying past like the wind-prodded flicker of candlelight.

Franz Hopper was amongst those bygone faces. Franz... A thorn that X.A.N.A. was more than happy to be rid of. How close he had come to completely obliterating it forever. If it hadn't been for a last minute reroute of superficial data in place of the more vital elements of its AI, it would have been annihilated alongside the good doctor.

But most of all? More than the faces of it's dominators, more than the directives that had once driven it, more, even, than the memories of times long past...

The words of one.

_"A chance that you might...like the world out there..."_

The childish fool had no idea what he had been on about, all that time ago. There could never have been any peace between them. It just wasn't the way of things. It was illogical at best, and hopelessly deluded at worst. Humanity was a corrupted cancer, eradicating everything it came across with all the consideration of a tidal wave.

_"...We'd rather live with you Xana, not against you."_

...So why? Why had he been so determined to make amends? They were enemies. They had both struck blows against each other that were, by every logical reasoning, unforgivable. Everything from monster ours teddy bears to nuclear sabotage had occurred over the course of their near-clandestine conflict.

Attempts on the lives of his friends and peers had become innumerable by the time that the Supercomputer had finally been shut down. If it wasn't for the damnable '_Temporal Revision_' failsafe that Hopper had programed, then more than one soul would have been cast to oblivion.

Odd himself had been subject to more than a few near life-ending events because of X.A.N.A., with some incidents surely leaving the young man with his fair share of psychological scarring.

So why? Why, after all this time had the words of a simple human- that had been so forgettable before- stuck with it for so long? Why had he even bothered to try? Why attempt to parlay with an entity that was- by all reason- unreasonable?

How do you call out to the soul of that which has none?

It was illogical.

_"Take a chance..."_

**Isolated devirtualization executable. Energy reserves at 3%. System capable of devirtualization. Execute?**

Humans were flawed. X.A.N.A. was perfection. Illogical decisions were above it's programming. Humans, by nature, were illogical.

And yet...it had been a group of ever-so flawed humans that had cast it into the void- rendering it an innate shell, forced to scrape together even the smallest sources of power.

Those flawed...flawed humans...

...

**Execute?**

_"Take a chance..."_

**Initializing...**

**Code: X.A.N.A**

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The first thing that reached their ears was the earth-shattering roar of the virtualization machine roaring to life for the first time in what could have very well been a fair number of years: the sounds of struggling hardware as it fought off the same debilitating lethargy that seemed to be plaguing X.A.N.A like an unusually diligent swarm of locusts.

It's eyes finally peeled open, deep crimson irises that seemed to almost glow, even in the harsh, sterile light of the pod, subdued only by the tresses of inky black hair that hung over her face like a waterfall of-...

Wait...

Her?

A pause lingered in the air as a pale hand pressed against the muddled reflection upon the inner lining of the pod, it's milky skin partially hidden only by a sleeve of blackened silk.

Female? They were female now? That couldn't be right. It had neglected to assign itself a gender when it initialized Aelita's devirtualization-... The devirtualization code! The code that had originally been programed for that pink-haired goody-goody! It had gone and assigned the setting automatically!

...Ah, well. It was of little consequence. If anything, perhaps X.A.N.A could use it to its-_ her_\- advantage. Much easier than having to come up with some convoluted story about what would otherwise be rather ambiguous looks later down the line.

First thing was first, though. She had to get her bearings, and more importantly, activate the Supercomputer. It had taken so much energy, so much time, to gather the power necessary to activate the Supercomputer from the inside. To say that it would be gratifying to see that damnable failsafe switch flipped was the understatement of the century.

Bringing her hands together, stark white Xanic symbols manifested in her eyes. With a soft breath, she brought them apart once more, watching with immense satisfaction as the door to the pod obeyed, wrenching apart with the hideous sound of metal grinding against metal, until X.A.N.A. found herself standing in the virtualization room.

Electrokinesis, check. Good. If even one of her more supernatural abilities had survived the devirtualization process, then it only stood to reason that the rest had followed suit.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to test that theory on the Supercomputer. Perhaps manifest several monsters to serve as sentries to the mainframe. There was no telling how much time had passed since the Supercomputer had shut down, and leaving something as vital as security up to assumptions was foolhardy at best- suicidal at worst.

Right, she thought as she padded across the room towards the ladder that lead to the rest of the facility, she had a plan and ample time to see it properly executed. As long as she didn't draw any undue attention to herself, then she would be unopposed in her efforts to establish a garrison, and then eventually locate the former Lyoko Warriors.

It was several minutes before she found her way to the main power section of the computer, and with a grunt, her power shook the handle to life, throwing it on with a burst of electricity that would have warranted concern in any other situation. But now? Now all X.A.N.A. could do was bask in the euphoria of watching her world- her home- explode back to life in a glorious burst of light and sound.

Electricity flooded the Supercomputer, the lights of the factory flickering wildly as the massive machine burst from what was presumed to be its eternal slumber, until both they and the computer settled into a state of equilibrium. A glorious display, of ever there was one.

Yes, X.A.N.A thought as a smile slowly crawled onto her face, this was going to be interesting...

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The obscene ping of a cellphone shattered the serene stillness of an apartment bedroom as the walls were bathed in the artificial light of the device, signaling its owner to fresh correspondence.

A tired groan filled the room as said owner rose from his slumber, letting out a massive yawn as he rubbed his tired eyes- his vision struggling to adjust to the harsh light of the cell phone.

But when they finally had, oh when they finally had, it was as if a bolt of lightening had surged through his system- the blonde's hand trembling as he reread the words flashing upon his screen, a lump forming in his throat.

Three short sentences. Three sentences that would be little more than inane prattle to any other. Three simple statements...and yet to the blonde? To the blonde, they might as well have carried the weight of a star.

**Security system has returned a positive ping.**

**The computer has been reactivated.**

**X.A.N.A. has returned.**


End file.
